


Sit in Judgement

by tstansetis



Series: Aedan Trevelyan [6]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Formerly Tranquil Inquisitor (Dragon Age), M/M, Samson Negative, Tranquil Inquisitor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-15 22:13:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11240319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tstansetis/pseuds/tstansetis
Summary: “Judging him will affect as many as his crimes,” he said coolly, his voice much steadier than he felt, somehow not betraying the too-quick beating of his heart, “I will not take it lightly.”Red Templar Commander Raleigh Samson has finally been taken into Inquisition custody. Inquisitor Aedan Trevelyan has a choice to make - to appease his own need for vengeance, or to judge him fairly.





	Sit in Judgement

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this for...quite a while. Too long to justify, honestly - so I decided to just post it and get it overwith. I had a few people read it over, first, and they seemed to like it, so hopefully you guys do, too!
> 
> I know a lot of people out there really like Samson, if you are one of them, this is probably not for you, please don't be angry with me! x_x
> 
> Aedan Trevelyan is my formerly Tranquil mage Inquisitor - he needs to be taken away from me right this instant, honestly, I do not treat him well. You can read more about him in the rest of his series, which I'm still actively adding to.

_ “Forgive me, Inquisitor - for personal interest, I have relieved Josephine, as you might expect.” _

Cullen was speaking, Aedan was certain of it, but his voice was distorted, muffled and distant behind the rushing of his own blood in his ears. His heart pounded against his ribcage, hard enough that he could feel it in his teeth, fingers trembling slightly as he shifted in the large crimson throne, crossing his legs to avoid nervously tapping his feet. He trained his hazy gaze on the stone floor, watching  the dancing shadows cast by the flickering flames of torches that lined the walls. The air in the hall was thick and heavy, and Aedan could almost  _ feel _ the silence closing in around him.

_ Breathe,  _ he reprimanded himself as his thoughts began to race, closing his eyes in an attempt to remain grounded. He could show no hint of weakness - not here, not now.

The clanking of armor and clatter of chains, too loud and too jarring, echoed through the hall, and the Inquisitor lifted his head, drew a fortifying breath, and set his jaw in determination. Mismatched eyes darkened at the sight of the man before him, and Aedan bristled at the taunting smirk that slid over the man’s greasy face, the way that his beady gaze flitted up to the sunburst branded onto the Inquisitor’s forehead, still visible through strands auburn hair. 

Admiring his work.

Aedan felt his face heat with a suffocating rage that caught in his throat, curled in his chest and sent a restless tingle through his limbs, all the way to the tips of his thin fingers - it demanded retaliation, demanded the feel of cracking bone, rending flesh and blood beneath his hands, demanded to destroy that smirk forever. He felt his grip on the arm of his throne tighten until his knuckles turned white, limbs shaking with the effort to hold himself back against the overwhelming wave of desire to  _ hurt _ . 

The violence of his anger startled him. It curled in his stomach, leaving him light-headed and uneasy. Fighting against the urge to physically recoil from his own thoughts, he settled for shifting slightly in his seat, chancing a glance toward his lover, who didn’t seem to be faring any better with masking his outrage - normally warm hazel eyes were stony and cold in a way that Aedan could never remember seeing them as they lingered on Samson.

“Knight-Templar Samson,” the Commander’s voice was amazingly steady, though the rigid tension in his shoulders betrayed his ire to the healer in the throne, “General to Corypheus, traitor to the Order. The blood on his hands cannot be measured. Not to mention the... _ personal _ injustice that he did you, Inquisitor.” In the next moment, Cullen’s eyes met the Inquisitor’s, and Aedan could  _ see _ the man grinding his teeth as his lover’s gaze flitted up toward the brand marring the mage’s skin.

A beat of silence passed with the Commander staring at the mark before someone - Leliana, most likely - cleared their throat. The sound seemed to jar Cullen back into the present, into the hall, and he swallowed, shifting his weight.

“His head may be...too  _ valuable _ to take,” the words seemed to stick in Cullen’s throat, and he spat them out as though they were poison, clearly displeased with them even as they slid off his tongue, “Kirkwall, Orlais - many would see him suffer. And I cannot say that I am not one of them, though I would prefer to see his head on a pike.”

Inwardly, Aedan couldn’t help but echo the sentiment - the desire for brutality flared once more, but he grappled with it, pushed it back down and steeled himself against it. He had made it this far as Inquisitor without sentencing anyone to an execution - there was always another way, always a more fitting punishment or some way that the person could be useful to the Inquisition, without dying. He would not let Samson take that from him.

He could do this.

Concentrating on steadying the rise and fall of his chest, Aedan sat up a little straighter, his eyes sharp and dark as he locked gazes with the Red Templars’ former leader. 

“Judging him will affect as many as his crimes,” he said cooly, his voice much steadier than he felt, somehow not betraying the too-quick beating of his heart, “I will not take it lightly.”

The sharp, humorless laugh that Samson let out nearly had the Inquisitor leaping out of his own skin, with how badly it startled him, and how on-edge he’d been, already. Aedan’s crystal eyes narrowed, a thousand terrible scenarios already skittering along the edges of his overworked mind, as Samson’s gravely voice filled the hall.

“The red lyrium will steal your vengeance, you know,” the chained man drawled, almost lazily, “you’ve seen what it does. Corypheus only delayed my corruption.”

“Are you still loyal to that  _ thing _ ?” Cullen’s voice cut through the slowly building fog of anger, and Aedan quickly turned his attention to his lover, grateful for his intervention, “he poisoned the Order! Used them to kill thousands!”

Samson snorted, seemingly careless in the way that he shrugged off Cullen’s words, “Templars have always been used.” Something dangerous flashed in the man’s eyes as his gaze met Cullen’s, “how many have been left to rot, like I was, after the Chantry burned away their minds? Like you  _ would have been _ , were it not for your precious  _ Inquisition _ and its poor excuse for a leader?”

Cullen visibly bristled, his eyes narrowing and jaw clenched tight, and he drew in a breath to speak in his lover’s defence, but Aedan held up a hand, meeting the Commander’s eyes with a subtle shake of his head. As far as the mage was concerned, Samson could question his leadership as much as he liked. There had been mistakes, yes - but the templar’s record as a leader was far more stained than his own.

When neither Commander nor Inquisitor rose to the bait, Samson scowled and shook his head.

“Piss on it,” he spat, disgust dripping in his voice, “I followed him, so that templars could at least die at their best.” His mouth twisted up into an ugly sneer, his nose wrinkling and eyes blazing with the rage beneath the mocking expression, “Same lie as the Chantry. The Prophet just isn’t as pretty.”

The corners of Aedan’s freckled lips twitched down into a frown, his brow knitting together thoughtfully as he crossed his arms over his narrow chest, rolling his shoulders. As horrible as Samson was, as  _ angry  _ as Aedan was, he couldn’t let personal feelings cloud his judgment. 

Maker, but it had been so much easier to organize his thoughts before Tranquility. When his magic had been restored, so had  _ he _ , but things were... _ off,  _ somehow. Wrong. Anders had warned them, afterward, that he wasn’t sure how the Inquisitor’s cracked and fractured psyche would readapt. Still, they had hoped against hope that things would slowly return to normal - that he would be able to reign in his bursts of anger, and that the sudden, deep sadnesses that would confine him to his chambers would cease, and the way that too much noise would send him into a panicked frenzy would fade in time. 

So far, he had not been so fortunate. His outbursts had been...less frequent, lately, that was true, but his temper flared easily. Conversations about how he ran the Inquisition that he would have simply waved off before caused him to second-guess nearly every decision he made. Words that he would not have given a second thought wounded him deeply. He tried, and he failed, and he was beginning to lose hope completely. 

But Aedan was so, so tired of being broken. He was going to set himself right, somehow. And he would start by facing Samson the same way that he faced every other prisoner - with mercy in mind.

Swallowing hard, the mage crossed one leg over the other, closing his eyes to collect his thoughts as he took a deep breath.

“You make it sound as though you had no choice. You could have fought,” he pointed out, trying to keep the chill out of his voice, and fighting the scowl that tried to curl on his lips when Samson barked out a cruel laugh.

“I fought and lost  _ long _ before Corypheus.” Samson looked at Cullen as though the man were something to be found in the sewers in Kirkwall, instead of the Commander of the Inquisition, “Your  _ Commander _ thinks he knows what that’s like.” Snapping his gaze back toward Aedan with startling speed, the man’s bloodshot eyes narrowed dangerously, “He’s wrong _. _ ”

Grinding his teeth, the mage did not flinch away from the templar’s glare. Instead, he tipped his chin up, squaring his shoulders. 

“This is not about Commander Cullen,” he said evenly, though the glint in his eyes made his displeasure very clear, “he is not on trial. You are. And your bitterness toward him does you no favors. I am trying to find a reason to be merciful, but your lack of remorse is making it extremely difficult.”

“Did I ask for mercy?” Samson jeered, spitting out the words as though they were poison, “I know what I did. I know that none of you can understand  _ why _ .”

The clanking of Cullen’s armor as he suddenly took an aggressive step forward beside the throne startled Aedan, who turned his head to look at his lover, his brow furrowed quizzically, but he remained silent, letting the warrior speak.

“You’ve always been weak,” the Commander all but growled, his face twisted in an angry scowl, “your leadership proves it.”

The prisoner glanced in Cullen’s direction, visibly unimpressed by the commander’s words, before turning his gaze back on the mage in the throne, a cruel smirk curling on his lips.

“He must be pretty good in bed, for you to ignore the way he was in Kirkwall,  _ Inquisitor _ ,” Samson sneered the title with no ounce of respect, and Aedan sat straight, rigid in his throne, jaw clenched and eyes wide, a chill settling in his bones. Beside him, Cullen froze, and the color seemed to drain from his face. They had only spoken fleetingly about his time in the City of Chains - it was too fresh, too painful, and Aedan had not pushed him. “Do you know how many blighted mages he executed on his own?”  The look of sickening guilt on Cullen’s face was too much.

“Enough. You will not say another word,” the Inquisitor hissed, his voice filled with venom that he hadn’t even known it could carry, and he turned his gaze on the soldiers who stood watch on either side of the throne, instead, “take him out of here. I’ll decide what to do with him later.”

“What,” the man in chains smirked cruelly, “You don’t want to hear about how many times he said that your kind couldn’t be treated as people? He was the  _ Knight Captain _ , you know - Meredith’s loyal little lapdog, sat through every Harrowing, every Rite, just  _ waiting  _ for the chance to stick his sword through some unfortunate apprentice, or see the light leave their eyes -”

“ _ Shut your mouth!”  _ Something in Aedan  _ snapped,  _ his stomach churning in disgust that bubbled up and boiled over. He shoved himself out of the throne, raising his marked hand in the same movement, a blur of motion, too quick for anyone to react. The air in the hall crackled to life as the Inquisitor drew on the molten heat at the core of his rage, felt it surge up his arm, searing in his veins and reddening his freckled skin, and before he was even aware of his own movements, flame roared to life in his outstretched palm and erupted outward, an enormous spiral that scorched through the length of the decorative red carpet in its path toward the man. 

Samson’s lips were curled into an ugly sneer before the fire engulfed him, but the screams as his body ignited were blood-curdling and horrifying, and the rancid scent of burning flesh quickly overwhelmed the hall as the templar dropped to his knees, howling in agony as the flames raged mercilessly at his skin, his hair, the clothes beneath his armor. The former warrior crumpled, a pathetic heap of blisters and burns with patchy and charred skin that seared itself to the heated metal of the armor that covered him. 

Aedan’s chest heaved. The sleeve of his robe was singed, his arm red and raw, stinging from the heat of his own magic. As the deafening ringing in his ears began to fade, the buzz of horrified gasps and panicked murmurs reached them. Dark, lifeless eyes seemed to stare straight through him from the horrific face on the floor as the twisted and mangled body on the floor continued to burn. The Inquisitor’s eyes widened, his chest hitching with a sharp gasp as he looked down at his own hand as though he’d never seen it before. 

_ Maker, no _ .

What had he  _ done? _

His stomach dropped. Heart pounding violently against his ribcage, the mage’s mismatched eyes flicked from his hand to the whispering crowd, panic seizing his chest, his breathing quick and shallow as his head began to swim. 

Dread clinging to the pit of his stomach, Aedan took one trembling step back, then another, before turning on his heel and tearing past the soldiers beside his throne, throwing open the door that lead toward his quarters, flinching as the sound of the heavy wood slamming behind him followed him up the stairs.

 


End file.
